Bernard 'Bernie' Ecclestone is the President and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Administration. Ecclestone is a phenomenally successful business man and can be credited in large part for the global success of Formula 1. He gained control of negotiating the television rights in the late seventies and has since managed to maintain agreement, despite heated disputes, between the various stakeholders in F1 as in so doing has become the primary power of the sport.

Bernie Ecclestone (28-10-1930) left school at 16 and for a short time worked for the gas company, but he soon combined his entrepreneurial skills and great interest in motorcycles to start a business trading in spare parts for motorcycles. He later bought out his business partner and built the business into one of Britain's biggest motorcycle dealers. In 1949 he switched from racing on motor bikes to cars, racing in the 500cc Formula 3 series acquiring a Cooper Mk V in 1951, but after a big accident at Brands Hatch, he decided to concentrate on business which grew to include the Weekend Car Auctions firm (which he eventually sold to British Car Auctions), loan financing and property.
 
In 1957 Bernie Ecclestone returned to the sport as manager of British racing driver Stuart Lewis-Evans. He bought the F1 Connaught team and ran the cars for Lewis-Evans, Roy Salvadori, Archie Scott-Brown and Ivor Bueb. He tried unsuccessfully to qualify one of the cars himself at Monaco in 1958.

At the end of that year Stuart Lewis-Evans, driving a Vanwall, suffered serious burns when his engine blew up during the Moroccan GP and succumbed to his injuries six days later; Ecclestone was rather shaken up and once again retired from racing. His friendship with Salvadori led to a return and his becoming manager of driver Jochen Rindt and a partial owner of Rindt's 1970 Lotus Formula 2 team, whose other driver was Graham Hill.
 
Jochen Rindt, was killed in a crash at Monza in 1970, by that time in the season he had enough points to win the championship posthumously.
 
After Rindt's death Bernie Ecclestone again quit the sport but at the start of 1972, he returned and purchased the Brabham  team from Ron Tauranac and began his decades-long advocacy for team control of F1, forming the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) with Frank Williams, Colin Chapman, Teddy Mayer, Ken Tyrrell, and Max Mosley.
 
Ecclestone was a very strong leader at Brabham, deciding that the company must concentrate all resources to racing; winning several races in 1974 and 1975 with Carlos Reutemann. He also led the team owners in a battle with the FIA in 1975 for a new system of entries and appearance money being paid to all the teams. In 1976 the teams won the battle and there began to be dispute over the sale of Television rights.

The 1976 and 1977 seasons were less successful for Brabham, as unreliability caused the team to fall towards the back of the field again, however in Niki Lauda won two races for the team in 1978.
 
In January 1978 Ecclestone became chief executive of FOCA with Max Mosley as his legal advisor and a new battle began with the FIA's new affiliate FISA. The battle for the commercial control of the sport continued until March 1981 when the Concorde Agreement gave FOCA the right to negotiate TV contracts. For this purpose Bernie Ecclestone established Formula One Promotions and Administration, giving 47% of television revenues to teams, 30% to the FIA, and 23% to FOPA (i.e. Ecclestone himself); in return, FOPA put up the prize money. The deal, with the benefit of hindsight may appear without risk for Bernie Ecclestone, but he was at the time considered to be taking a great risk. The deal demonstrates well his negotiating brilliance, and more-over the subsequent growth in the popularity of F1 and its increasing global reach his marketing and business genius.
 
The Brazilian Nelson Piquet began racing for Brabham in 1978; Piquet formed a close and long lasting relationship with Ecclestone and the team, losing the title after a narrow battle with Alan Jones in 1980 and eventually winning the titles in 1981 and 1983.

At the end of the 1987 season Ecclestone sold the Brabham team to devote more of his energies into his role of running F1. Having bought the Brabham for approximately $120,000 at the end of 1971, he sold the team for over $5 million to a Swiss businessman, Joachim Luhti

In 1995 the FIA decided to grant the commercial rights to F1 to Formula One Management for a period of 14 years, in exchange for an annual payment from Ecclestone. The F1 teams were upset as they found that they had lost the rights. McLaren, Williams and Tyrrell refused to sign the new 1997 Concorde Agreement but the other eight teams backed down. Eventually an agreement was reached for a 10-year deal with the teams and a 15-year deal with the FIA.

Bernie Ecclestone has very considerable personal wealth, he has diversified his investments selling part of his holdings in company that owns the rights to F1. However, he remains very much in control of F1.
 
Ecclestone can be controversial, sometimes making ill judge comments that are then magnified by the press. He certainly can be abrupt in his demeanour with the press at times, and has at times taken very strong positions when negotiating with track owners and promoters. But the Ecclestone story is incredible; a guy from an ordinary background has through guile, intelligence, vision and hard work positioned himself at the centre of a sport notorious for attracting big egos and power players.